Regional Planning in Queensland's Rangelands: Challenges and Prospects for Biodiversity Conservation

In Australia, the Commonwealth and State governments are increasingly devolving natural resource management (NRM) responsibilities to regional bodies. This move has led to the development of regional NRM plans. Native vegetation and biodiversity conservation, along with soil, pasture and water resources, are key components of the regional NRM plans in Queensland's extensive rangelands. This paper outlines and applies a set of criteria for evaluating the native vegetation and biodiversity content of accredited regional NRM plans for Queensland's rangelands. The evaluation showed considerable variation in the comprehensiveness of the information and knowledge base and management action targets among plans, including the poor articulation of impacts of excessive grazing pressure on biodiversity. The NRM plans lacked effective integration of natural resource, native vegetation and biodiversity conservation targets and actions. Several regions had too many biodiversity targets, many of which were poorly integrated. This is symptomatic of a limited understanding of rangelands as ecological systems and the lack of an integrated planning framework. We conclude regional NRM planning is not a ‘silver bullet’ for biodiversity conservation in the rangelands, but rather, it is the beginning of a long road to address complex, multi‐scale problems at a regional level.     

Spatial and temporal patterns in primary school enrolment and exam achievement in Rural Uganda

Using a mixed-methods approach, including qualitative, quantitative and Geographic Information Science methods, we assessed the primary school landscape around a protected area in Western Uganda. Data from a household survey, interviews and standardized school examinations were mapped to visualize spatial patterns in enrolment and academic achievement. We found children on average were starting school at age nine, but started to dropout as early as age 14; especially orphaned boys. Twenty of 36 schools demonstrated improving examination results from 2004 to 2013, although in one district improvements were lacking. Girls traditionally perform poorer than boys on exams in Uganda, but we found girls’ exam scores were catching-up. Support from one non-governmental organization with a long-term local presence was improving academic achievement. The use of Geographic Information Science provided spatially explicit recommendations to guide local policy actions for primary school education.     

Pourquoi seules les villes sont-elles qualifiées d'intelligentes? Un vocabulaire du biais urbain

Since 2010, the term “smart city” has become a buzzword, used in a vague way to denote the increasing integration of information technology into city management processes and to describe the social and community processes they enable. The adjective “smart” is, however, only applied to cities: by implication non-cities (i.e., rural and peripheral regions) are not smart. In this paper we describe how the term “smart city” is used, and show that processes similar to those that make cities smart also occur outside cities. Reserving the term “smart” for cities therefore reflects a bias, similar to the bias that associates creativity and innovation with cities. As geographers we have become aware of our colonial and sexist biases: in this paper we argue that our urban bias is alive and well, and call attention to it.     

不同类型传统村落脆弱性比较研究

以湘南地区作为研究单元,多元化获取数据,运用“敏感-暴露-适应”分析框架和数理模型评价法对3种类型、6个村落的脆弱程度和致脆因素进行比较研究。结果表明：①务工型强脆弱、工贸型中脆弱、旅游型微脆弱;②旅游型和工贸型属复合E-A致脆类型,务工型属均衡E-A-S致脆类型;③务工型的敏感性远大于其他类型,民俗文化和村落居民是主要敏感因子;④旅游型为强暴露、工贸型为中暴露、务工型为微暴露。城镇化和旅游开发是主要暴露因素;⑤旅游型的适应性最高,工贸型次之,务工型最差;⑥不同类型村落的致脆短板因素差异较大。     

1959年全国急性传染病学术会议的历史考察

1959年5月,为适应防疫的需要并迎接新中国成立10周年,中华人民共和国卫生部、中国人民解放军总后勤部卫生部和中华医学会在北京联合召开了全国急性传染病学术会议。会议贯彻中西医结合的卫生工作方针,结合时代发展需要,交流并总结了新中国成立以来医学界在防治急性传染病方面取得的成功经验,制定了8种急性传染病防治方案,对此后的传染病防治和研究起到了重要的推动作用。此次会议既为当代中国防疫史增添了浓墨重彩的一笔,同时也在我国医学发展史上具有重要意义。     

Academic Journals in the Digital Age: An Editor’s Perspective

The contributors to this forum each reflect on a particular aspect of the future of academic publishing. James Mussell outlines how the form of the online academic journal, and in particular ongoing use of pdf, remains resistant to the potential that the digital environment can offer. Lucinda Matthews-Jones continues the conversation by explaining how journal blogs, such as JVC Online, act as digital spaces that facilitate more creative engagement with multimedia and which allow authors to foster and to interact with new and often broader networks of readers. Finally, Helen Rogers surveys the current landscape of academic publishing and urges us, as scholars, to move beyond the traditional schema and embrace the potential that Web 2.0 can offer. As more and more of our scholarly lives are lived online, the investment of the scholarly journal in print culture becomes apparent. These essays recognize the value of longevity, of scholarship’s commitment to both the past and the future, but they also suggest that scholarly publication needs to attend more closely to the times in which it is published.     

Internationalisation at Stellenbosch University during the international academic boycott of the apartheid era (1948–1994)

In this article, we address the international dimension of Stellenbosch University (SU) during the apartheid era, most notably during the academic boycott of South African universities between the early 1960s and the early 1990s. Based on information gathered from the documentary sources of the university and interviews with key role players at the university, the findings of the research will put some of the well-established hypotheses on South Africa’s academic isolation and an increasing localism in higher education during that period into perspective. The article will show that prior to 1990 there were different kinds of international activities going on at SU, despite the academic boycotts.     

Collaborative Methods: A Comparison of Subfield Styles

Collaborative research partnerships between academic anthropologists and host or descendant communities are becoming more popular in anthropology. The reviewed books demonstrate there are different understandings of what collaboration means for professional identities and expertise across subfields. Therefore, such partnerships are unlikely to promote cross-subfield integration. Nevertheless, while their collaborative styles diverge, the reviewed authors are motivated by a shared interpretation of disciplinary responsibilities and opportunities that emerges from anthropology's longstanding commitment to fieldwork and also reflects post-World War II historical transformations. Their shared interpretation raises challenging questions for the discipline at large about professional practices like evaluation.     

大遗址价值评估体系研究

古遗址是重要的一种文化遗产形态,大遗址则是具有中国特色的一种与文化历史价值、行政管理、政府决策密切相关的保护对象。显然大遗址的价值判定和评估是这一特殊对象有效保护的基础。本文通过国内外评估体系的比较分析、国内资料、现状的调研分析,确立评估要素,进而结合价值评估体系构架的方法,对我国大遗址价值评估体系进行了初步研究。